Week 11

This Was the First Week That I started to make my character, I decided to use Blender instead of 3DS Max as there are more tutorials, on blender as well as people tend to use it more.

First I start off with making a vertex, by merging a cube at centre, then I added a mirror modifier so that I only need to model half of the face. With the single Vertex I Extrude it to the side (you can extrude by pressing the E key in blender) to get the Jaw, then Extrude it Up and slightly to the left, and then Up again to get the Face Shape

Next I switched to the Side View to move the verts back to give depth to the face. After that I extruded the Vertex at the very bottom to make the Lips and Nose as well as the Fore Head. How I did that was by Extruding the bottom Vert from the side view outwards, then extruding it back inwards on the horizontal line to get a nose shape and then Extruded Up to get the Fore Head. Last part was I connected the Fore Head Vertex to the Rest of the Head.

Next I Smoothed the Face out by adding a lot more Vertex and moving them out to curve out the face. I do this for the Nose, Fore Head and Lips as well. To add more Vertex to an already existing Edge/Line you press Ctrl+R, which basically loop cuts the model but as we don't have any faces it just adds more Vertex. For the Mouth we will be Adding 5 Vertices and then moving them into a mouth shape and for the Middle Vertex I will be Extruding outwards from the front View Point  

After that I added the Eyes, by Ctrl+RightClick which makes a Vertex in Edit Mode, then I extruded it, looking at my reference to get the Eye Shape. Then I rotated it on the Z axis for a tiny bit just to get it following the curvature of the rest of the Face. I might as well Extrude back Scale the face in and Cap it as well to give the back parts of the Eyes, I would of had to do it later anyway to give the illusion of Eye balls. I Cap the back by selecting all the Verts I want to Cap and Press the F key

Lastly I finished the block out by making these two unique shapes that will help me down the line. I will try my best to describe the shapes but, essentially you make a loop of Verts around the Nose and the Mouth, But I need to make sure I use the same amount of Verts as the Jaw area. I also Added more Verts on the Nose to smooth them out. Once I made the Unique Shapes I also push them back to follow the rest of the curvature of the Face.

Now that the Face has been Blocked Out I can start connecting the Verts together. Before I start I made a mistake near the Nose as I Shouldn't of connected the ring shapes just yet, but don't worry its an easy fix as I just need to disconnect the Verts by either Separating them or Dissolving them and then Reconnecting them. What I should of done before was Extrude the Nose Centre Line of Verts Outwards Horizontally, then connect the Rings.  

Alright Now that I fixed my mistake, we can start filling the Face out. I might as well start with the Nose as I just fixed it. So for the nose it is pretty simple as we just connect every thing together as the verts should all line up, but if not then I can always add more Verts by Ctrl+R.

Next I wanted to do the Jaw area as it is also just connecting the Verts as we set it up that way, and I will also connect the Eyes to the Nose as well. I also Forgot to say but how we connect the Verts together to make a Face, is by selecting the Verts we want to connect and then press the F key. I also Added a lot more Verts to the Jaw to smooth it out a bit as well.

Next I fill out the Cheeks, I added more Verts in between the Eyes and nose as well so that it will make the Topology a little bit smoother, it should also look pretty nice too.

Alright the last part will be to Fill the Fore Head in, after that it will be the Mouth Area but I will talk about that later because I will be making the Mouth in a Unique way.

I decided to Shade Smooth the Face as it was looking very Low Poly, Shade smooth should sort that out, basically what Shade smooth does is it Smooths out the model To Shade smooth the Object all I have to do is Right Click and it should be the first option, you have to be in object mode though. 

As You can see there is a problem with the way it smoothed the Face, so the way I fixed it was by going over to the overlay menu, and then Tick the box Face Orientation, which makes the Face Blue and Red. Basically the Red parts are facing the wrong way and the Blue parts are facing the correct way.

How we get the Red parts to face the correct way is by selecting the entire model in Edit mode, the quickest way to do this is by pressing the A key which will select everything. Once everything is selected then we press Shift+N which will Recalculate Normals for the model which will hopefully make all the Faces face the correct way.   

Now that the Normals are fix and the Face is look nice and Smooth we can now move to the Mouth area. I did make a mistake a bit with the mouth thought as I made it a single edge and Vert, instead of two edges and one Vert, this basically means that my character doesn't have a top lip and a bottom lip, so at the moment my character technically doesn't have a mouth. There is a quick way I can fix this though which would be to delete the Vert in the middle of the mouth and then connect the Vert that is left back into the middle but having One edge connection to the top lip and the other edge connection to the bottom lip and that should give me the base to working lips.   

Now that I fixed the mouth, I can move on to making the out line area of the mouth. How I do this is by adding in some more Verts along the top and bottom lip to smooth the mouth out a bit more, then I Extrude the top lip up and the Bottom lip down. Next I select the corner of the mouth as we will be doing something special for that, which would be to Extrude the corner Vert out on the Horizontal line, then connect the Vert to the top and bottom lip that I Extruded earlier by pressing the F key and then add an extra Vert on the Edge line, then for the top lip you move the extra Vert up to make it curved and move the extra Vert on the bottom lip down to make a curve, then you just make it a Face by press the F key. I moved the Mouth down as well because it looked like it was to close to the Nose which will make it hard to animate, and I made the Mouth smaller because it also looked way to big.

Finally we get to the Mouth and the unique way on how we are going to make it, First though we are going to subdivide the Mouth by selecting the entire Mouth, and then Right click, it should be the first option. How we connect the Mouth to the rest of the face though is by doing the Guilty Gear Method, which is essentially using Triangles to Connect the Mouth to the rest of the Face, however the Triangles have to be positioned in a certain way or it will look weird when the Mouth moves. We want something like this:

We want it so that all the triangles are facing outwards, this gives us the maximum flexibility we want for Facial movement. An example of what we don't want would be something like this:

 

The reason on why we don't want the triangles facing out in this kind of direction is because when it comes to moving the mouth, the mesh would deform and look horrible.

The Guilty Gear Method isn't just used for bigger Facial expressions but to get better anime style shading as well, so that's why I am using it for my model, so that it looks as good as possible whilst being practical as well. After connecting the Mouth to the face, it should have some Normals which are facing the wrong way to which it should be an easy fix, which was A key to select all and then Shift+N to recalculate the Normals. 

Next I Extrude the Jaw area back a bit, and then move it up a bit to make a Chin, I also start to shape a circle for the Neck, by Extruding some of the Verts from the Chin area. 

I then rotate the Neck Verts a tiny bit and then Extrude them downwards, to get the Neck shape. 

Before I finish the Head I forgot to make the Mouth box which is where you put the Tongue and Teeth. It doesn't really matter on the shape as long as it is some sort of Box shape. The Mouth box it quite easy to make, all I have to do is Extrude the Mouth inwards and then Scale it up, then I add an extra loop with Ctrl+R and then Scale that up too. Last thing I need to do is Cap the back of the Mouth box.

So how I'm going to do the rest of the Head is by using a guide. How I make it is by making a UV Sphere and Scale it a bit to the correct Head size as the Face and then, we go to Sculpt Mode and use the Grab tool to move the Mesh around until we have a head shape we like. Once the guide has been made then we can go back to the Faces edit mode to carry on with the rest of the Head.

Once the Reference has been made, I can make the rest of the Head. I started at the back of the Neck and Extruded along the Reference until about half way up the Head 

As the Head will be covered up by the Hair we can make the Head low poly instead. When it comes to connecting the Head to the Face we can use triangles to make it so that the Head is low poly Whilst the Face stays as high poly as possible. Once we have changed some of the poly connections on the Face to triangles, we can then connect it to the Head. With those connections we can add more Verts to smooth out the Head and make it possible to connect to the Neck. 

Then I Face all those Verts. which makes up the side of the Head. Now I will be moving onto the top of the Head, which I think I will start by Extruding the Fore Head up a bit and then Merge the Verts together by pressing the M key to get the Merge menu and then press the A key to Merge at centre which will give me the Triangle connections I am looking for.   

Then I Extrude the back of the Head till it Reaches near the Fore Head and then I connect it to the Triangles I created earlier. I make sure that it has the same amount of Verts as the ones connecting to the Neck. 

I added Red lines to show what I mean by adding the the same amount of Verts as the Neck, the reason on why we add the same amount is because it makes it easier to connect. I also added in some more red lines as well to show that I need to make extra Edges/Verts so I can connect the entire head together. I quickly connected everything, it could have been done better, but we will be hiding it later anyway so it doesn't really matter. 

Now that the Head has been Modelled we can now start to make it look nice with editing the Normals. I first start by making this shape underneath the Eye.

This Shape will help the Normals, to make the Head look more anime like when we shine light onto it. There is another Shape I need to make as well which will be near the top of the Eye and this will create the Shadow of the Eye brow.

The Red Lines are the Shape that I made to help with getting an Eye Brow Shadow where as the Blue Lines, were necessary to make sure we had no Ngons on our Model. Ngons can make the Model Brake easily where as in certain models you can get away with using Triangles as they done tend to break the model as much when it comes to Rigging or animating the model. Now I am going to Edit the Models Normals, but to do that I need to make a couple of Planes by pressing Shift+A, which will bring up a popup menu, to which I select Plane and rotate it to face the Front Viewport, then I duplicate it by pressing Shift+D and rotate it to face the left, duplicate the Front facing one again, then Rotate it so that it is facing downwards, then duplicate the Front Facing plane two more times, and rotate one by 45 degrees-ish to the Right and the other one by 45 degrees-ish to the Left. Then go to the Viewport Overlays Option and turn on Display Split Normals near the bottom. The reason on why we use Display Split Normals option is to see which way the Normals are facing. 

Then Select a Front Facing plane Vert and copy its Vector, you do this by going to the Mesh menu, go to the Normals Section and click on Copy Vector.

Then we Select the entire front part of the Face and then we Paste the Vectors onto it 

Then I select a Vert from the plane facing 45 degrees-ish, and then copy and paste its Vectors onto the Nose area.

Then I select a Vert from the plane which is facing downwards, and copy and paste the Vectors onto the inner Eye Brow shape I made earlier. 

Next we are going to add a Simple Anime shading on it, how we do that is by going to Materials, make a new material, call it something like Skin, then we go to the shading menu, delete anything that is in there and then add a Diffuse BSDF, a Shader to RGN, a ColourRamp, a Mix and a Material Output Nodes, into the Node Graph. the best way to add Nodes, is by going to the Add Section and then type what Node you want to find. There are some changes we are going to have to make to the ColourRamp Node, which is change it from Linear to Constant and change the POS to 0.295, next we change the Mix Node to the colours you want to make your character, Colour 2 will be your base colour, whilst Colour 1 will the Shadow Colour, what I did was chose what Base colour I wanted my character to be and for the show colour I copied my base colour and made it a little bit darker. 

Now we can move onto making the Eyes. First I make a Circle, then I rotate it so that it is facing the Front Viewpoint, I then Scale it on the Y Axis to make it more Oval/Anime style eyes ,I then Extrude the Verts back a tiny bit and then I Merge all the Verts into the centre. Then move the Eye into the Heads Eye socket area and then rotate the Eye just a little on the Z Axis so that the Eye don't look out of place, then I rotate the Eye on the Y Axis so that it is following the Face Line. I also Extruded the back of the Eye and scaled it in a bit to give more depth to the Eye. 

I also for got to mirror it, so how we Mirror it so that it matches the other side of the Face is by using the Mirror modifier, select the Axis to be Y and deselect the X Axis, and the use the pipet tool and select the Head, that will make the head the reference point.

Next I will quickly Unwrap the Eye, so that I can put a Texture on them. How we do this is by going to the UV Editing Menu which is on the top bar. Next we will select the outer line of the Eye go to UV and click on Mark Seam. Basically Marking the Seam will make it so that when it comes to Unwrap the Eye it will Sperate the Back of the Eye from the Front.

Next we select the entire Eye by pressing the A key, then go to the UV Unwarp menu and do the same, then Right click and Select Unwrap (It should be the First option). Move the Front part of the Eye into the top Right Corner and back part of the Eye you don't need to worry about. Scale down the Back Part of the Eye so that it is out of the way and Scale the Front part as well but not as much, and also scale it so that it is more circular then oval.

Next we head on over to Photoshop, we make a new Canvas which is 4096 pixels by 4096 pixels because it will make the Textures 4K. I like to Fill the background colour with Grey, as it makes mistakes easier to see. Then I make a Perfect Circle by pressing Shift whilst dragging it out, and move it to the same location where our UV Unwarp of our Front Eye is, then we fill in the Circle with a dark grey.

Then I make a smaller Circle and make it the colour our Eye is going to be, then I make an even smaller Circle and make it a darker colour of what our Eye colour is, to make the pupil, you could also use Black to make the pupil, it just depends on what the creator thinks look better.

Next we select half of the Eye colour Circle and we darken the top half. Then we draw a bean like shape near the bottom of the eye and make the bean shape a lighter colour.

Then we add another bean shape bellow the first bean shape and we make it an even lighter colour, but we change the hue a bit that still matches our base eye colour.

I then added these nice white circle in the bottom part of the Eye to make a shine effect, I also added some colours in the top right corner, as I will be needing them later to make the Eyes look even better. Lastly in Photoshop I used the Gradient tool on the top half of the Eye to make it look nice. Once the Eye is done we same as a PNG.

Back in blender we make a new Material and call it Eyes or something along that line. Then we go to the Shading tab, yet again delete anything in there and add an Image Texture and Material Output. Then in the Image Texture find where you saved your Eye Texture and Apply it.

As you can Probably see the eyes are up-side down, so how we fix this is by going to the UV Editing menu and rotate the Front Part of the Eye until the are the right Side up. Next I select the Eye socket, create a new Material and then make that new Material the Eye Material we have already made. With the Eye socket selected click Assign whilst on the Eye Material and that should change the colour of the Eye socket to a grey, then go to the UV Editor and press the A key to select everything then click Unwrap and Drag the Unwrapped Eye socket over to the White coloured box that we made in Photoshop and that should make it look like our character has some eye balls.

Next I am going to Edit the Head a bit as I don't like the way it looks so, I'm going to use the Sculpting mode to drag points around as well as make other parts smoother or wider. After that I make a plane and move it near the top part of the Eye, and then edit it so that it is covering the top part, I then decide to curve it out a bit. After that I unwrap it and make it the colour which is next to our Eye ball colour.

Next I move onto the Eye Brows and Eye Lashes, I first start off with a plane and move it to the top of the Eye I then make a simple Eye Lashes Anime Shape, then I add two loop cuts so I can make the Eye Lashes pop out a bit more, then I extrude two faces and scale them inwards and move them over a bit to the Right, then I loop cut them twice so that I can curve them out a bit, and that should be the Eye Lashes done, we can also Unwrap them for now and Paint them later. I also copied the top part of the Eye Lash and moved it just above the Eye lash to give it a bit more Detail. 

Then to finish off with the Head I added the Eye Brows, to which I copied a bit from the Eye Lashes and used it to make the Eye Brow, we put one where the Shadow part it and then we put another Eye Brow just above it.